Lula Palmer interview

1
Interview with Miss Lula Palmer
Date of Interview : May 19, 1980 ; Montgomery, Ala bama
Interviewer : Kathryn Tucker Windham
Transcriber : Edna O. Meek
Begin Side 1 , Tape 1
"Recollections of Gee ' s Bend "
L. Palmer : When we went down there , the blacks didn ' t have
anything . They were just grubbing out a living
with their hands, and the Farm Security went
down and asked for the WPA to give them some
help .
KTW : And you were working here in Montgomery at that
time , with the WPA ?
L. Palmer : I was in charge of the WPA nursery schools .
KTW : And this was about ' 37?
L . Palmer : Yes . somewhere between ' 35 and ' 37 . Of course , I
think this is important, because when one govern­ment
agency asks for another government agency to
help them out ... See . very little of that is ever
told in any sort of per sonal history or romantic
history . or anything else . They always make the
government things fight each other .
WelL anyway. the Farm Security asked for help from
the WPA to establish a WPA nursery school down
there . to take care of the children between the
ages of two and four or five . about that age .
So I was sent down there to do it. and, of course,
Gee ' s Bend is in the curve of the river, and the
philosophy of that area was that no white person
should be there after dark , and I was told that
by any number of blacks . The black teachers
were always worried when the sun would start
going down and I hadn ' t gotten across the river .
They even went across the river many times with
me , to be sure that I got on the other side .
KTW : Now , were they operating a ferry at that time?
L . Palmer : Oh, yes .
KTW : To Camden .
L. Palmer : Is there a bridge now?
KTW : There ' s nothing now . There ' s not even a ferry .
They have to go all the way around, forty miles .
L. Palmer : Well . I went all the way around . I didn ' t go at
Camden across the river . I went across the river
up farther . I went over almost to Catherine and
then through the bushes , through a little ..... .
You see , no roads were paved so it didn ' t make
any difference ... to a landing over there . I 've
forgotten what it was called .
2
KT\'l : Probably Hllley ' s Ferry or Miller ' s Ferry.
L. Palmer : Miller ' s Ferry . probably, because it was over
nearer the Miller property . Well . anyway, when
I got over there , Robert Pierce .. does that mean
anything to you ?
KTW : No .
L. Palmer : He ' s a black who was raised on Martha Simpson ' s
plantation . And I had known him when he was a
small boy . He finished Snow Hill Institute, and
if you want a story on that , I can give you that .
You see , it was largely financed by a few people ,
the President of Sears - Roebuck Company and my
great uncle , Mr . Simpson , and the land was given
by those two sources . The president of Sears- Roebuck
was very much interested in the education of negroes ,
and at that time it was really a part , or at least
it was supervised by Tuskegee Insti tute . WelL any­way,
Pierce finished there , Robert Pierce , and his
life history is most interesting .
KTW : Is he still living?
L. Palmer : Oh, yes . I saw him not too long ago .
KTW : He lives in Montgomery?
L. Palmer : No , he lives in Lowndes County . And I could tell
you about him in Lowndes County . He was a very
close friend of Hulda Coleman ' s there, and he had
a great deal of trouble during the integration
period, because he took up for Hulda and he was
tarred and feathered and all those things that
are horrible that could happen to them .
And I could tell you one funny story about him.
Anyway, he was having so much trouble with the
federal government and, you see , I was working
with the State Depar tment of Education , and I
worked ... this was just during the integration
period .•. and I worked with negro schools , and I
worked with white schools. So whenever I went
to a school , black or white . it was my policy
to speak to the principal of the school be f ore
I went into any classroom . And it didn ' t make
any difference to me whether it was black or
white . And so , I went down there . I knew Mr .
Pierce had been having problems with the federal
government. because he did take up for Hulda.
and Hulda was trying to do the best she could to
hold the schools . Well , anyway, when I went down,
Hulda sent one of her supervisors down there witm
me , a young woman from , I think. Oklahoma . A
very attractive young woman. and she said to me ,
"You don ' t have to wait to see Pierce . " I said ,
"Oh, yes , I do . It ' s for me , not for Hulda or
for the State Depar tment . It ' s my policy, and
I never go into any school without speaking to
the principal first . !I And she said, !lWell , you may
have to wait here a little while ." I said , "Well,
3
L. Palmer : are you in a hurry? l1 She said, ItOh , no. I I m
with you today. Ii
80 we sat down and the secretary came over and
said , "We ' re awfully sorry but there are some
people here from Washington and I can ' t disturb
Mr . Pierce. " And I said . " \'/e11 , don I t disturb
him. I ' ll be here when he gets out . I' Well . in
about fifteen or twenty minutes he came out with
two blacks and a white from Washington . and as
he came through the door he threw up his hands ,
and he said , l1 Bless God , Bless God , just like
seeing my relatives ! Bless God , Bless God. just
like seeing my relatives ! II Well , you have never .
He had a little higb, squeaky voice . Well , I
with you could have seen those peoples ' faces.
They didn ' t know what in the world to make of
it . And he brought me over and he said , "This
is Miss Palmer. She ' s in charge of all of the
education in the State of Alabama." Well , I
swelled up , you know , I was going to be put on
all that I could do . And I spoke to them , shook
hands with both of them , and I said , 111 I m sure
you find this school in very good condition , and
Mr. Pierce is one of my fine principals. " I
thought I ' d put my thing in because he did run a
good school . I wasn ' t lying about it . He had
a good school. He was a good man .
So , when they spoke to me , they went out, and
they 100ked ..• I have never seen people that
looked so shocked in all my life. So after they
had gone out, he said. "I wouldn ' t have taken
a million dollars for that . II I said . "Well .
Pierce, I ' ve come down here to see your kinder­garten
. your nursery school and what you ' re
doing in first grade . II He said, "Well , that ' s
just fine . You know you didn ' t have to wait to
see me ." I said. II No . but you know I always do . 1I
He said, II Yes , ma ' am . 1I So he went with us .
and that was the end of t hat . But I thought that
was the best part .
KTW : Yes . "Like seeing my relatives. " I know they
were shocked. Is he in Lowndesboro now?
L. Palmer : He lives out from Hayneville . No , not Hayneville .
KTW :
On down there at White Hall . Out in that area .
He has a nice home. He married a home economics
teacher and they live very well . In the mean ­time,
he got his Masters and Doctor ' s degree
from A & M. He ' s really something .
Well , let me go back and make some ties with
Gee ' s Bend.
L. Palmer : Now, we ' ll go back to Gee ' s Bend . When I went
down there, Pierce was in the school. They were
going to open up a public school . You see , they
didn ' t have a public school down there, and the
building was just about completed, so after I
4
L . Palmer : looked over and inspected the building he was
going to have for the nursery school , I went over
to the public school to see Pierce , and , in the
meantime , I had visited a few of the homes with
the teachers , to see what we had in store fo r us ,
and I would ask these mothers how old their
children were . And they said they were born tlbeween
cotton picking time and I tater digging time . /I Well .
I knew when you picked the cotton and I knew when
you dug t he potatoes , but I didn ' t know. what year.
YOll see , t hat didn ' t help me much .
So I went over to Pierce and I said to . hi!ll , 1I 1 1m
having a little trouble finding out how old these
children are. 1I He laughed and he said. "What do
they tell you? ' Tater digging and cotton picking ?1I
I said , nYes . II He said , II Don ' t you know when they
do that?1I I said, " Yes , but I don ' t know which
year, whether they did it this year or last year
or year before. 11 He said , II Don ' t worry, Miss
Palmer, I ' ll send you a wagon load of children ,
and if they ain ' t right, you just send them back
to me . 1I And I said , "Well, that's just fine. 1I
So I went on home that night and slept well and went
back down there early the next morning . He was
going to send them to me the next mo r ning. We
had gotten the school pretty much fixed up. So
about 8 : 30 , here came this great big truck load
of children , just packed in as tight as you could
get them on it, and he backed it up to the f ence,
and the t eacher s and I stood on the other side
of the fence , and he ' d drop them over to us, one
by one.
KTW : Were they frightened , or were they •••• ?
L . Palmer : Oh , no . Wiggling and giggling . They were having
a lot of fun, and we looked them allover , and we
examined them and we looked at their hands and
heads and everything , and finally I said to the
teachers , "Well , these look pretty good to me .
How do they look to yoU ?1I So the teachers said,
"Well , they look all right to us, if they look
all right to you. "
So , we took them in and got them started in the
school. So that afternoon before I left. I
thought I ' d go over and thank Pierce for sending '. ',
them over and tell him I liked them. So I
went by and I said , "You did a good j ob and I
apprecia t e your doing it. I cause I didn ' t know
how in the world I was going around and get these
children . What in the world did you do . 1I He
said . IIWell . as the children came in, I had them
open their mouth, and if they had cut their six
year molar, I kept them , and if they hadn ' t cut
them , I sent them to you. "
Now , find anybody else that would use something
that we had known since the year one about growth.
5
L. Palmer : You see , the child who is immature does not cut
his six year molar as fast as the child who is
mature . So he might have gotten some five - year­aIds
that are quite super ior . If we ld use
that now , we could get along a lot better . But
now, isn ' t that astounding ? I said . "Well . Pierce.
what are you going to do?" He said , II I want you
to see my school , and if you get any suggestions,
you help me . II
We went around and he had different numbers , one ,
two , three , four . eight. seven. allan these
doors . He said, uYou kno w, not anybody down
here can read and write . so I let the children
pick the number they want to go to . except I
put all the little ones in one and two. After
that, they can pick any grade they want to go to ."
Now, isn ' t that good?
So Pierce and I worked very closely together . He
always checked on me whenever I was down there .
and I checked on him just to see if there was
anything I could do .
Well , there were a lot of things that happened .
In the first place . the children had never seen
a flush toilet . We had put in waterworks for
the flush toilet. So . we had a great deal of
plumbing trouble the first money down there ,
because they eternally had to pee . 111 got to pee.
I got to pee . II But they knew they couldn ' t
flush the toilet unless they peed , so I was
afraid it was going to give them all kidney trouble .
I didn ' t know what to do , but I still stuck to my
guns that they had to do something in the toilet
before they could flush it, because we were just
literally wearing the thing out . So this man
from \Olashington came down and wanted to get •••••
this was several months after the opening •• wanted
to get a tape of what the children did , and the
nursery school .
Oh. by the way, before that, I went down one day
and they didn ' t have any children . I said, nWhat
in the world has happened2 11 They said. "Well,
they got the rumor spread that Roosevelt was
fattening up all these children and he was going
to send a car down here, a train down here to
get the children and we must have them all fat .
and when we get fat, we get slick . 11 That ' s
when I first noticed how you do get slick when
you get fat. I said, liMy goodness alive. what in
the wo rld would Roosevelt do with all these
children ?" And this teacher just really died
laughing. We were all good friends , you. know .
So I thought. "Wha t in the world can I do ?"
So I went to see the preacher. and the preacher
and I sat down and I said. "Now you know that
somebody started a rumor just to hurt us down
here. and you know that can ' t be true . What in
6
L. Palmer : the wo rld would Roosevelt do with forty or
KTW :
fifty children . between the ages of two and five?"
And he says . " Na I rn , I don ' t think he wanted them ."
I said, "Will you preach a ser mon Sunday and get
those children ba ck in school ? They are starving
they are not getting the right food , they are
not being taken care of . We give them a bath
every day and they get good food and they ' re
happy." He said. Yes lm."
So the next Sunday the teachers told me he
preached a good se r mon about Roosevelt . He said
he loved those little children but he wanted them
to be nice and fat in their own homes . So, the
next day the nursery school was filled .
I wonder if that was one of the Pettways ? The
preacher?
L. Palmer : Oh. nearly everybody down there was a Pettway .
You didn ' t have to learn but one name . All of
them were Pettways . So then , we came back and
these people came from Washington . I ' m not sure
the sequence of this thing is right. And they
called me in Montgomery and said they ' d like a
tape re cording , l i ke to reco r d the children. I
said . "Well , we ' ll be delighted, but have you ever
taped children? " He saidm ," No ' m." I said, "Well .
would you like for me to go with you , because you
may have problems taping the children . The
teachers are busy_ They haven ' t got time to
monkey with a tape recorder . We ' ve got forty
acti ve little children down there, all between
the ages of between eighteen or nineteen months
up to five years ." He said, "Well , if you could ."
So I went down with him and told him to set up
his tape equipment . In that day and time , it
wasn ' t simple .
KTW : Reel to reel .
L. Palmer : All this stuff you had to go through . Because I
said it was rather fascinating and they ' d probably
want to know something about it. I said, "Here
we do whatever we want to about whateve r is
brought in . If we want to touch it, we touch it .
We may have to wash our hands before we touch
it , but we are allowed to touch it . II He said,
"Well , that ' s fine , I ' ll get set up. /I I said,
HWtll , you know you have to prompt children to
keep them going at this age. I ' ll have ~he
teachers pick out one of the vocal ones , but in
the first place t hey ' re not accustomed to whites ,
and they ' re certainly not accustomed to white men,
and particularly people dressed up like you are .
People would frighten you if you had to talk in
front of somebody who was all tricked out in some
sort of costume. "
I think this boy got more frightened and more
frightened the longer I talked, but I wanted to
ha ve him ready for it . I said, 11 1 '11 stand here
7
L. Palmer : and if you look up at me and want me to inter­fere
, I will. II So , we got a Ii ttle boy . It
was right interesting that this little boy was
more vocal than some of the little girls , but ,
anyway. he came down and I said . "You ' ll just
have to ask him one question . then another ques ­tion
, and wait for him. You have to wait for
little boys to talk , because they don ' t burst out
like little girls . '1 I was giving him a good
lesson in child education .
So t he little boy came up and he said, !IGood
morning. tt The Ii ttle boy said . "Marnin 1.11
And he said , "What do you do when you go to
school ?'1 He looked , he looked. and I said , "What
do you do first? 11 He said , 1'1 opens my mouth. II
He said , tlWell , why do you open your mouth ?-"
"So teacher can look in ." "What do you do next?"
He said , "Then we pees. It And the boy looked at
me and said , "And what do you do next? " He said ,
"Then we washes our hands. II "And then what do you
do next?" "Then we go in the room ." II And what do
you do next? " "We listens to stories , but we sits
on the floor first . II "And then what do you do? "
"Then we gets up . II "Then what do you do? " "Then
we runs a r ound . 11 II And then what do you do? " "We
pees . " "And then what do you do? 1I !'We washes our
hands . II II And then wha t do you do? 11 "Then we
paints . II "What do you do after you paint ?" "We
pees ." And he said ..•. by this time this boy
was getting just about convulsed . •. He ' d smile ,
look up at me , look down, and he said, "What do
you do ne xt ?" "Then we gets our mats and we
takes a nap ." "Then what do you do? " "Then we
gets up and we pees. II "And then what do you do? "
"We washes our hands and goes to dinner." "And
what do you do next? " "We pees , and then we puts
on our pajamas , and then we takes a nap. " "Then
what do you do?" "Then we pees. " "Then what do
you do? " "We plays outdoors ." "Then what do you
do?" "Our mamas come for us. " "Then what do you
do? " "We pees ' fore we go home ."
About that time he said , "Well , that ' s about
eight or nine pees . My God , what do they pee
all the time for?" I said, "If you ' d never had
a flush toilet , wouldn ' t you pee every chance you
got?" He said , IIMiss Palmer. I never thought
about that in my life . " I said~ 1! They don ' t
have to pee all that time , but they have to pee when
they use the flush toilet. " Well, that 1 s on tape
in WaShington somewhere .
KTW : Was that flush toilet worked off the windmill ?
L. Palmer : I think so , yes . We had a tank, some sort of
tank . I don ' t remember where the tank was , but
it was worked off a windmill.
KTW : Because there was no electricity down there.
8
L. Palmer : No . I ' m telling you ••. well , t ha t was one of them.
The other story . The next time I went down there,
they called me and asked me i£ I could come . They
we r e having a lot of trouble with the childr en
getting to s chool . That the parents we r e keeping
them out . We either had too many or too few. So
I went down and t he teache r s were terribly upset.
By the way, I met one of these teachers down on
Dexter the o t her day. and she g r abbed me and about
s cared me so bad I didn ' t know wha t to do . I
didn ' t see her . She was behind me. S.he said , 1I 0h ,
Miss Palmer , I wouldn ' t take anything fo r seeing
you . n
So anyway, I said, !'What ' s the t r ouble ? !! She
said , "Well . the preacher has said we ' re · teaching
r ecreation over here and re creation is bad. "
I said , "Oh, well . I guess I be t ter go to see
him . n She said . "Dh, I wish you would . II So I
wen t t o see the preacher and we sat out on his
po rch and I said. "I understand that you ' ve been
pr eaching that we are teaching recreation .• "
"Yes lm. you sho ' is . That's a nice pla ce and I
sho ' ha t es to p r ea ch agains t i t . but you know
recreation is a sin . " I said, "Well . re creation
is a big word and it means a lot of things to
a lo t of people . Let ' s talk about r ecreation a
Ii ttle bit . Now. ther e I s certain t ypes of recrea­t
ion . I agree with yo u . I t l s this matter of
·playing cards for money and things like that.
I 'm agains t it . But not all recreation is that
type . "
He said. "No lm. it sho ' ain ' t . Maybe we better
talk about recreation. II I said, "What do you
think is bad about recreation ?" He said, II Well ,
this here ball playing . it ' s bad. " I said . nWell.
n ow , not all ball playing . You don l t think all
ball playing is bad, do you ?" He said, "Yes , ma 'am .
I just think ball playin ' is bad . " I said . "Well,
if you bet on games and you don l t play f air and
you say somebody is ou t when they ' re not out,
that ' s bad . That ' s sinfu.l. I know the Lord
wouldn ' t like that . Don I t you agree that ' s wrong? II
He said. II Ye-S . 1I I said, "Well . what a r e we doing
in the nursery schools that is so bad ?" He said.
"You I re teaching them chilluns how to play ball ."
I said, "No w, wait just a minute . When a chi ld
has a ball and throws and runs ~ f ter it, do you
call that tea ching tlall ?" "No lm. not exactly. "
He sai d. "What do you call it ?" I said, 'I I call
it exercise. " He said , "Yes . " I said , "You kn0w
you got to exercise . You can ' t plow the fi eld
unless you exer cise. You folks can ' t g0 to
church unless you exercise enough to walk t here . "
"That shd is so. They catches that ball , though ."
I said ; " I f you know a thr ee year old and a two
year old threw a ball and they caught i t like
this . would you call that tea ching them to catch
a ball ?" He said, "Na I rn , wha t you call it ? !!
9
L. Palmer : I said. 111 call that an accident. II He said,
l1 Lord. bless God, all you doin I is tea chin I
exercise and accidents . Al l t.h em 'chi l l un be ba ck
there next Mandat . "
KTW : Isn ' t that a strange thing ? Now , they ' re still
against all recreation down there. It was the only
nutrition site in the whole ten counties that would
not let us bring in checkers or dominoes.
L. Palmer : Oh. no , they didn ' t want to even catch the ball .
KTW : Oh, no. And they ' d tell me how they ' d get whipped.
when they were children for playing jacks with
rocks . Anything as innocent as that ... I just doni t
understand it.
L. Palmer : You know , I ' m sure you ' ve got the tales about they
always left one child in the home to take care
of the old folks.,
KTW : I have heard that , but did you ••• -.?
L. Palmer : Oh, they have told me that.. You see , I was down
there for eight hours or nine hours a day without
another white on the whole thing. And , naturally,
when you are ther~, and I visited the homes, I
did what the teachers couldn ' t do ,. Now, the
teachers had a little more trouble getting into
the situation than I did. I don ' t know, I guess
they just accepted me, but the teachers were black,
but they were from Camden. or other places . .
They didn ' t trust outsiders. Mr. Cammack was the
director of the Farm Security., He tried to get me
to always say I wouldn ' t go down there unless he
was there . Well. I wasn ' t going to do that. LQrd,
if I wasn I t enough to go down there and take care
of things •. .•
Well, he helped to build the houses. and put the ..
the first thing they did down there was the houses.
You see . their houses were practically falling
, in . He had them put steps on them. I thought
that was kind of interesting. They didn ' t have
any steps.
KTW: How did you get up ?
L. Palmer : Oh, somebody pulled you up , or-•.•.
KTW : When you first went down there, the government
had not done anything in the way of improving the
life conditions ?
L. Palmer : Oh, no. They had started this publie school and
they had included Mr. Cammack. Now, that was not
Mr. Cammack who lived here. He was at Auburn .
This was his brother who lived down at Grove Hill,
down in that part of the state. And they had
gotten a house and gotten it repaired for a
nursery school , and I think the Farm Security was
10
L. Palmer : probably thinking about operating their own · when
they found out they couldn't . We had ours going
and could get it going . We had just the very
best teachers , because . you see , during that time
so many of the schools in the rural counties
only ran three months , and the teachers were in
bad shape. and a great many of them were on WPA .
And the WPA was very',- very lenien t wi th the
nursery school program and let us select the very
best . And then we gave them six weeks of training
before they ever went in there .
KTW : Here in Montgomery?
L .• Palmer : No . we gave the white teachers Montevallo . Of
course . Montevallo had a very fine nursery school
at that time., and still does.. And we took the
negro teachers some here and some to Tuskegee .
And. of course. we selected our own teachers for
that type of thing. Then we took them back every
four months for a weeks work , and those teachers .
well , you can ' t say they weren ' t trained . They
were pretty well trained to do the type of thing
they had to do with the children that we had at
that time .
KTW : Now , was this nursery school close to where the
present school building is ?
L . Palmer : \VeIl , it was within walking distance . I walked
KTW :
a lot farther then than I do now , but it was . you
came to it first from this road that I came in on.
In .relation to the store , you know the big
commissary. it was not built at that time , though.
L ~ Palmer : Well . they did build a store . Of course . I used
to go back for all my vegetables and eggs . You
could buy eggs for five cents a dozen and you
could get a mess of turnip greens for a nickel .
They had never sold anything" Money was just
not used.. They ' d swap stuff . And the houses .
Well , I ' ve seen worse filth . because I think
KT\; :
the worst filth and poverty in the state was in
Huntsville at that time. But , places were
pitiful . But I was accustomed to pitiful places ,
so it didn ' t probably affect me as much as . ...
Were they mainly two room , dogtrot houses . or
what were they like?
L .. Palmer : They were two rooms .. Part of it would be torn
down . Sometime they had a little lean- to on the
back.. They had no toilets and they just went
out in the bushes, and they had leaks . In the
rain , many times you had to put your umbrella
up in the house . I usually wore a rain cap because
I was ashamed to put an umbrella up in somebody ' s
house.. I guess that was my sensi ti vi ty to people.
KTW : Also bad luck .
11
L. Palmer: Well. it is bad luck, but they had enough bad
luck to last them for the rest of time. And they
had a bsolu tely nothing. to work with. No t a ho e .
I didn't see a hoe or shovel. Sometime you'd
see an old hoe handle around that they ' d nail
something on it , just a little piece of metal .
KTW : Tin can. or something .
L. Palmer : Yes , something like that~ Talk about grubbing
out food . They grubbed out their food . There
wasn ' t any doubt about itM And . of course, if
you went around to see them, you had to drive .
because some of them lived a mile or two apart .
They lived allover that a~ea. And, of course ,
they sent these trucks out to pick up the children
to bring them in, and when . ! say that it sounds
cruel , but it wasn ' t .. The people who took care
of the children on those trucks did a beautiful
job ..
KTW : But were they just like empty truck beds?
L . Palmer : Yes . They put mats down for them to sit on .
KTW : Were they covered over?
L. Palmer : Well , they had a cover over them, but it wasn ' t
a cover like they have now . They just put a piece
of tarpaulin over them , or something of that type .
Get them in there in the rain . Sometimes they ' d
come in sopping wet.. You know, it depends on
what you are accustomed to .
KTW : It didn ' t make them sick, did it?
L .. Palmer : No , they were accustomed to being wet.. Not that
we would do that .
KTW :
You see, they fixed us a shower. They took my
dimensions and everything . I had the showers
buil t up so it wouldn ' t be so hard on the teachers"
backs , and the Ii ttle ones could climb up into
the shower., and then we could shower them off
standing UP4 They were built up about this
much off the floor , so , you see, the child would
stand about where your stomach is~ And then we
would teach them how to bathe . But these child­ren
would just have dirty dirt on them . I mean
clean dirt on them. You know . like yard dirt
and that kind of thing . and it wasn ' t so diffi ­cult
to clean them.
Now . what did you feed them ? Was ita diet
that they were accustomed to?
L. Palmer : t<lell , we always had turnip greens and black eyed
peas and to!llatoes , and whatever .• We used the food
we could get there first.. And we had eggs . We
had beef, we didn ' t give them fish and things of
that type . We would have given them catfish
12
L. Palmer: because they were accustomed to that, but they
weren ' t accustomed to these deep sea fish and
that type of thing. so we didn ' t give them that.
but they got a complete diet. They got two ­thirds
of their daily intake there at school .
KTW : Sweet potatoes and peanuts?
L. Palmer : Yes. And •.• but their food was delicious . Those
teachers were just marvelous cooks.. As I said,
we gave them ••• every child got two - thirds of their
daily intake, not just one meal , two - thirds of
their daily intake . They had milk . We had a
hard time getting pasteurized milk. The govern­ment
required us to give pasteurized milk, which
was right. And I was talking to some of the
mothers about this . and where we could get it.
because we had to get it across the river and
bring it in . but since it was pasteurized and
since we did have ice over there . it was brought
over twice a week eventually.. We had a time at
first . We just used powdered milk at first. but
after we got going . we got fixed up . I said some­thing
about pasteurized milk and this lady said
to me . "Lord . Miss Palmer. we ain ' t goin ' have no
more trouble ' bout that pastenriz ed milk. Lord .
they done. made a .government rulin 1. up there in
Montgomery which says we have to put all our cows
in the pasture .!I
So we got them pasteurized milk . But one other
thing happened down there . Honestly . every time
I went down. I never knew what was going to happEn
to me .. The gover nment. they always called it the
government. sent them some ladies down there. and
this teacher said to me . "Do you know these nurses
that the government has sent down here? !I I said .
uNo . what do they want? !I The teachers began to
giggle . They said. !lThey wanted to teach us birth
control .!I I said . "W ell . what did they teach you ~"
They said. !lOh. Miss Palmer, 1 ' m embarassed to
tell you . !I I said, nWell , I know about things
like that. you don ' t need to be embarassed to tell
me .'! They said. "They was teaching us the douche
method and they brought us all some powder. and
they ga ve us all a douche and they gave us thi s )Kl
powder .!I I said. l' Well . that ' s nice . I ShO l hope
they use it before 1 ta ter digging time comes . !I
They laughed. and so I was down there the next we~
and these teachers met me at the door and said ,
!l Oh. Miss Palmer. we do wish you had been at
church yes t erday .• n I said. lIWhat in the world
happened at the church yesterday ?!! I said . 111 hope
I don 't have to go back to the preacher . 11 They
said , !!No'm. you won ' t have to go back . you
never saw such pale folks in all your life . 11 I
said . lIWhat in the world happened?!! Said, !lThey
put that powder on their faces . '1
L . Palmer : You know , people just don't have any sense. That ' s
no way to teach those folks not to have any child­ren.
I went to ano t her one down there, we took
a lady down there with us , and she talked a
little bit about birth control, and when we got
through, I was talking to one of the mothers of
the children , telling how nice her little boy
was doing in school , and she says , "You know, I
been havin ' a child every year . II I said , 1IWell ,
I hope you ' re going to quit it ." She said, " Lor~
Miss , I sho ' is goin ' quit that thing . I didn ' t
know how you cotched ' em ' til today . 11 WelL she
explained how you cotched ' em .
KTW : But they still have tremendous f amilies .
L . Palmer : As one person said, that was an outdoo r sport. It
was , in one way, a most pitiful place, but it was
a happy place , and that school did a lot . They ' ve
had to close the school completely, haven ' t they?
KTW : They have the first six grades down there .
L. Palmer : First six grades . You see, they were not supposed
to have but the first six grades when we were down
t here, but nobody could read , but they took every­body
up to sixteen years of age, which was the
right thing to do . I don ' t think anybody found
out about that until they plosed t he project .
KTW :
But I didn ' t see anything wrong with it .
But t hey closed the nursery school , and I was
having a .... Rober t Pierce was retiring f~om his
school over there and Hulda asked me over for the
retirement party, so I went over and I was sitting
next to him, and I sai d , llWha t in the worl d do
you think has happened to Gee ' s Bend?l1 I was
hearing all these wild tales about it .
Now, how long ago was this ?
L. Palmer : This was , well , it was after I retired . It was some­time
around ' 72 or '73.
KTW : About seven years ago .
L. Palmer : I retired in ' 69. And he said , "I think definitely
they took supervision away t oo fast . They were
still children . They were no t ready to go on
their own . And if they had left some supervision
down there , this would never have happened . 11 And
I ' ve thought about that and thought about it, and
I ' m not so sure he isn ' t right; because, after
all . they were adults , and they had lived under
terrific supervision during the Gee ' s Plantation
period . They were told what to do , almost when to
get up and when to go to bed, and then suddenly th ey
were left without anything and almos t starved to
dea tho And then suddenly they got all t his super­vision
again, put steps on their houses , t aught
how to repair their houses , and then to build
their houses , and then suddenly all that was taken
14
L. Palmer : away and they just did not have time to go into
it. At least. that ' s my view.
KTW : Were some of their houses made of logs?
L. Palmer : Some were , but not too many . Most of them were
just sap boards , with siding that you could pull
off . There were not any real good houses down
there . at least that I saw, and I drove miles and
mil es and mil es •
KTW : You must have seen all of them .
L. Palmer : Well . I had to visit the homes . and I had to - for
instance. if we found some child that needed
medical attention and I was down there , I would
usually go with the teacher or go by myself to
talk to the parent and to tell them and explain
what needed to be done and that I would go with
the baby and bring the baby back. They knew I
came back and that they could trust me .
(End Side 1. Begin Side 2)
L. Palmer : We took the children into Camden .
KTW : To Dr . Jones?
L. Palmer : To Dr. Jones . It just depended . We used the
Farm Security to carry out that end of it . and
I found out it was our service , but they paid
for it. So I ' d find out who they had selected
for that month .
KTW : They kind of rotated?
L. Palmer : They rotated .
nurse out there
And
at
we could get
any time .
the pu bli cheal th
KTW : From Camden?
L. Palmer : From Camden . And she came. I think. I ' ve forgotten
now whether it was once a . • .. 1 think it was once
a week she came anyway . And she went to Pierce ' s
school and then to the nursery school , because
that ' s part of the public school . You see, those
schools . even though they were buil t by WPA as
the funder . they were public schools under Mr .
Bill Jones . Have you ever talked to him?
KTW : Yes .
L. Palmer : Bill ' s getting awfully frail .
KTW : They talk to me sometimes and mention a man named
Julius Brown. They call him Mr. Julius and he
seems to have been in their minds the big man .
And I ' ve never been able to find out who Julius
Brown is .
L. Palmer : I know he was Farm Security . I know
but he was not down there regularly .
on the project. I remember him , but
that much.
He was not
I never did
15
L. Palmer : see him . I never did see the high guys. I
didn ' t want to see them .
KTW : Then they talk about a woman named Mildred Meadow.
L. Palmer : Well . she was Farm Security. too . Did they talk
about Catherine Deats?
KTW : No , I haven ' t heard Catherine Deats .
L. Palmer : Well , now, Mildred Meadow worked for Catherine Deats .
KTI, :
Catherine Deats was the top guy. but Catherine
cpuldn ' t stand that type of thing .
Was Mildred Meadow white?
L. Palmer : Yes . This Brown fellow was white , too .
KTW : Yes , I know . They called him Mr. Julius . But they
also told me that Mr . Julius came down there one
time and told them he wanted them to make a suit
for the president. and they wove a suit on the
looms of the school . a pin stripe suit, and
then they told about making a cape. so they ' re bound
to have made a cape for Roosevelt . because he
wore a cape all the time .
L. Palmer : Oh. they sent him a turkey . They were always doing
something for Roosevelt. You know. the thing about
it is people go down there and treat them like
KTW :
they are some sort of foreign dogs or cats or
something like that. but I ' ve been raised with
n eg r oes . so to me . they ' re just friends .
But I used to be so amused that they would just ...
I don ' t know whether they thought a screech owl
would get me , or what, but I had to get across
that river before dark . I never worried about it
because I knew I ' d get back sometime . And I knew
nearly about everybody that lived in Wilcox County .
If I could get on the highway. I could find at
least one white family to spend the night with .
Yes , somebody to help you out. You were about to
tell about the steps when we were interrupted
while ago .
L. Palmer : Well . I was going to say that was one of the
funniest things , because they could not see any
reason for steps . And the way. ~ou see, the
houses were fairly low, they didn ' t have to have
but two , but they were teaching them how to cut
that piece to hold the step up , and then put a
plank across it. And you see how you get up
there . It wasn ' t more than about as far as that
second or third one up there, could put my foot
up there and somebody would pull me up on the
porch. I didn ' t go in the house unless they
asked me . but if a child was sick and I needed
to see about that. I ' d go in and they wouldn ' t
think anything about it then . And I used to sit
16
L. Palmer : on the porch and talk to the preacher . They had
little porches on some of them. and some of them
didn ' t have any porches at all . The porches had
fallen off ~ Or they had in and r ound there enough
wood to keep warm, but they would very often tear
off their porch and burn it . And they ' d torn
off the steps and burned them and they saw no need
for steps .
KTW : Well , they still see no need for railings on the
steps . They have concrete steps which are shallow
and steep, and I don ' t know why some of those
01 der P Bopl e don r t jus t fall down and break their
necks .
L. Palmer : Well . you see , they put wood ones in there first .
then they got those concrete block things . ..•...•
You notice they don ' t play games down there , either .
Why, we wouldn ' t any more carry dominoes down
there, or· anything to play wi th that way . The
only thing we had in the way of recreation was
the nursery school ball. People will always give
you balls , and they were nice for the children to
play wi tho
KTW : But they bordered on sinful.
L. Palmer : The preacher and I were real good friends . though.
KTW : Well . now, did they play any singing games down
there?
L. Palmer: We played them at the nursery school . And they
played them in their elementary school. But • • ••
KTW : Such as ?
L. Palmer : Oh, I1Here We Go ' Round the Mulberry Bush ". "I
Shake r em To The East. I Shake r em to the West ,
I shake rem to The One I love the Best. " Oh,
the little ones could do that just beautifully.
They ' d shake their hips , and they loved that.
KTW :
L . Palmer :
KTW :
L. Palmer :
KTW :
L. Palml9r :
Is that "Here We Go , Loop - de- Ioo rr ? Now. what is
the name of that?
"Shake
two or
' Em To The East . "
three verses. You
I do n't kno w •
know how they
Well . how does that chorus go ?
It could be "Here We Go , Loop - de- loo " •
remember that, but I expect that ' s what
They had
do it.
I don ' t
it was.
I believe it is. I
one in a long time.
The Windows "?
just hadn ' t thought about that
Did they play "Go In And Out
Some.
in the
nearly
Of course. not in the nursery school . but
elementary school they did . They did
all those that are listed in the early
1 7
L. Palmer : music guide books for elementary school s . And,
of course, the older children had a Mayp ol e ,
I remember one year.
KTW : They still have May Day down there .
L. Palmer :
KTW :
They had a very elaborate May Day.
race and they would do the Maypole
do some very simple dances .
They would
and they waul d
Well , now, I ' m surprised they got by with that,
because that ' s . 4 • • • • •
L. Palmer : Well . Pierce was known . He had been brought up
in Wilcox County. over in Furman on a plantation.
He had gone to Snow Hill Institute, and •••
KTW : He Has local ?
L. Palmer : He was local . And • ••.
KTW : Had good credentials.
L. Palmer : Yes. He ' s an interesting man, and he knew what w
do with the preacher, and ••• he told me once, he
said. nYau know. you ' re getting about as good with
the preacher as I is ." I said, "Well, thank you.
I ' m glad I am . 11
KTW : Did you ever go to church down there ?
L. Palmer : No , I never did. I never was down there on Sunday.
I was brought up in a negro church. That ' s where
I got all my religion.
KTW : They have the best kind.
L . Palmer : They sure do . Christine McCann has been so amused.
with me because I said that ' s where I got my
religion. She said, 11 you don ' t mean it. 11 I said,
"Yeah. I was allowed to shout and I was allowed
to represent myself . 11
KTW : I have spoken out in many a meeting such as that.
They expect you to.
L. Palmer : Oh, sure . Take your money up to the front , lay
it out.
KTW : But their singing is just as beautiful down there
as it used to be.
L. Palmer : I never went to church there . I don ' t know why.
I guess it ' s because I was terr ibly busy during
that time . We had all these schools in the
state, and I was on the road all the tim e . That
was the only one we had in Wilco x County, the only
nursery school . We had several here, and in Hunts ­ville
. I ' ve never in my life seen anything like
tha t.
KTW : \1ell , I hope things have improved.
18
L. Palmer : Oh, Huntsville is a beautiful town now.
There ' s one thing about black children. and that
is that they dress and undress themselves much
more effectively and easier than white children .
I found that out here, I found it out there where
they had very Ii ttle clothing to put on .
They usually had on some sort of Ii ttle panties of
some type. even if it was made •• • . of course. a lot
of them were made out of flour sacks , which was
the nicest kind of material you could get . It
was just beautiful material , and they had dresses
made out of that, so they got along pretty well .
How they got flour in there before we got down
there , I don ' t know. But, of course, when the
Farm Security went down , they took staples in
and dished them out from the commissary. Oh,
once in a while they ' d come with just a l ittle shirt
on, with no pants . And, of course, one of the
things , and I just never did know, physologically,
how I felt about this, I had to follow the teachers '
atti tude about it more than I would have on my own .
If I ' d had a chance to experiment with those kinds ,
I would have r eally had a good time . But I had
to respect the morals of the community .
See, they were accustomed to going to the bathroom
when they had the urge, wherever they were . Now.
that ' s the way we ' re supposed to be , but we messed
this thing up by putting in all this other junk.
and we have to do it on a schedule basis , accord­ing
to some of the books . We never worried about
a schedule basis . because it was too much fun to
flush the toilet. But, getting them to go to the
toilet as they were supposed to get to do it,
rather than just stopping out in the yard, was
quite an interesting project for those tea chers .
And then, the point of it is how to get to carry
over the housebr.eaking at the nursery school .
See, they were at the nursery school from 8 : 00
in the morning until , . •. well, they were supposed
to get there by eight . The teachers got there
at 7: 00 and they left at 7 : 00 at night. And
the children stayed ' til 6 : 00 , so they were
really there from 7: 00 to 6 : 00 .
KTW : Almost twelve hours.
L. Palmer : Almost twelve hours . They picked up an excellent
vocabulary. And that, of course. was very inter-·
esting to me . They picked up the vocabulary of
KTW :
the teachers , you see, and the teachers • •• I sugges ted
they talk to them a great deal and let the child-ren
talk, but, you see, they didn ' t have many
words . Even the four and five year olds didn ' t
have a • • . oh, their vocabulary was very. very limi~ed .
Well , th ey were not permi tted to speak to their
elders , so they tell me down there .
19
L. Palmer : And they never saw them very much .
KTW : They wer e in the fields .
L. Palmer : The grandmother or some great- grandmother would
stay home with them. but they ' d play out in the
yard and there were always faour or five of them
that could play together, so they weren ' t depen ­dent
on that . I was kind of interested in this
in connection with the Aborigines . when I was
down in Australia . One thing they were doing
with the teachers down there . They found out,
at least one of the research projects that ' s going
on now down there, it ' s on the basis that the
Aborigine children are not as low mentally as
some people would like for you to believe. That
they are too secure . Now , we find out so much atout
insecurity. but we don ' t know what being too secure
will do to you . And. too secure. they ' re always
with someone they know. and usually someone of
their own family that lives in their own house .
Consequently. they never have to make decisions on
their own .
And they • . . working with the teachers . I talked
with two or three of the teachers while I was
down there, on what they were trying to do . They
don ' t want to break the security so they 'll be­come
insecure. but they want them to become less
secure so they will want to read; so they will
want to learn ; so they will want to do something
different . And I . somehow. if I had known about
that when I was working with the Gee ' s Bend child­ren.
I think I would have been able to do a little
better job with them . I didn ' t know that . Be ­cause
everything you read in the book, and every ­thing
I had studied was to see that childr en
became secure .
But you see . they were with part of their family
all the time. They never had to depend on anythbflg .
Hhenever their family went to church, they took all
of them with them . And no w, you know, you have w
put them off in a pen by themselves in the back
of the church . You can ' t take them into the
sanctuary . You can ' t take little children into
the sanctuary of the big churches any more. because
they might cry .
Of course. I Tm being very sarcastic, because I dis ­like
it very much . But down there they sat on
the front seat, and if they had to cry, they cried .
And then . they never bothered people. because
there was nothing to bother . And I have a feeling
that if we had done a few little things to start
with - - -Of cou r se. you r hindsight is better th~
your fo r esight anyway - - we could have done a lot
more with that generation, so this gener a t ion that
you ' re working with now would not be as they are .
They would have had some different reactions to
life and to behavior.
20
L. Palmer : Now. again . you take this matter of toilet train­ing.
I questioned everything we did down there.
But, of course, we were trying to get these young­sters
into , well , some people call it civilization ,
a civilized way of behaving . I don ' t know . I ' m
sure it is . We certainly wouldn I t want everybody
going back the other way . If they lived in the
ci ty and had to go someplace else, so I always tal d
myself that if they lived anywhere else , they ' d
need to know this .
It ' s jus t like we were teaching them how to read
and write . We teach them the word " toilet l1
, the
word II Men ll
, and the word IIWomen ', because, socially.
you had to f ind out wha t were some of the important
things that made them acceptable in another society.
KTW : Well , what did you do about their table manners?
L. Palmer : Well, at first we put only spoons on the table .
KTW :
Before we left down there, the children were eating
wi th forks. We never did have them use kna.ves. We
put the knife on the table and we do that in lot
of nursery schools , even with white children, so
they 'll know what a table setting looks like , and
so they ' ll know where it is and so they 'll know
not to play with the tools . With the white children;­with
them we ' d just put it there for them to see
the setting . But at first we put only spoons.
And if the child a te with hi s hands , we didn ' t
always notice it. I mean, you let it go , because
the first thing we wanted to do was get the child­ren
to eat, and they ate with their hands when
they came . As a matter of fact, they would take
the Ii ttle plates that we had and put them on the'
floor.
Well, we had tables their size and chairs their
size and they were very pleased over this type of
thing , and we could keep most of them at the table .
Of course, I always expected the teachers to eat
at the table with them.. You know , teachers always
fuss about this in the public schools. I haven ' t
got any patience with it, because where they going
to get a model if they don ' t have somebody, theoret­ically.
who knows how to eat. They may not, but
you expect teachers to know how to eat.
I expect some of them didn ' t even have a sp:pon at
home, don ' t you ?
L. Palmer : cr J no . T,Iiley ate with their hands . But. you see,
we did have a spoon right at first . When I went
down there the first day when they opened, they
were setting the table all up and it just looked
marvelous. I said, "Now, listen , we ' re going
to take the knives and forks off. We ' re j ust
going to leave a spoon . because you know our little
friends have always eaten with their hands . and
if they do it today, we ' re not going to be concerned
about it. We ' re going to go slow. "
Voice :
21
How long would it take them with the spoons
before they ' d use a fork?
L. Palmer : Oh, probably thr ee or four months . If th~y go t
a spoon inside of three months , I wa s pl eased.
They found the sp oon real ly did a be t t er j ob
eventually. t"e hoped that. And so the spoon
was used .
KTW : One down there not long ago was telling me about
how the grandmother would keep the litt le ones , and
that a noon she ' d feed them in a . l i ke a hollowed
out bread tray, and they just had one spoon , had
corn bread and pot likker, or something. and they ' d
pass the spoon around, dipping down in t here .
L. Palmer : I never saw that. I saw them eat with thei r hands
and I saw them eat out of a common bowl .
KTW : Well . this was a bilig -ll common bowl .
L. Palmer : Well , I never did see the spoon being passed around.
KTW :
I guess that must have var ied with the grandmother .
Did y.ou ever meet Little Pettway when you wer e
down there ? I think his name was Little . He
was supposed to be the head man . They ' ve always
had a head man down there, and I never qUi t e
unders t ood that. I don ' t know how you got to be
the head man.
L. Palmer : Well , on the plantation , didn ' t they have t he over ­seers
?
KTW : Haybe so, and maybe that ' s the start of that.
L. Palmer : It started back then , and then , you see, when they
brought in the Farm Security, Mr . Camma ck was the
head man , and he was considered the head man on
that project . And then , I guess , when he left
they just picked up another .••. and then they had
a black head man at the same time.
KTW : Well , t his was the black, I ' m sure .
L. Palmer : Well , I ' m sure I met him , but I don ' t remember .
KTW : His widow still lives down t her e , but she knows
KTW :
so little. You know, it ' s sad t o try to ge t in­formation
from people who ... she must have memori es ,
but there ' s just no way t o stir them , it seems to
me.
The childr en ' s names.
Were there any unusual
Do you recall any of them?
names ?
L. Palmer : Not as you would expect. I mean, they were not
any t hat I really would pick out. I used to have
some pictures of the children down there.
KTW : Where are they?
22
L. Palmer : I don ' t know . If I run across th em when I ' m
cleaning up . 1 ' 11 be glad for you to have th em.
KTW :
I think one of the things that those chil dren,
that f ascinated me about teaching children, I
was down there enough that I was really one of
t he teachers. Because I had to . I couldn ' t leave
those teachers down there , bu t they had to get
into the community just as I had to ge t in the
communi ty and be accepted by the people there .
But there were no local teachers available?
1. Palmer : No , ~ none available that we could use, so we had
to bring them in, and I got some of the most
sensible black teachers I could find . I mean
people who really •••••
KTW : ~o w, where did they live ? Did they live with the
local people ?
L. Palmer : They lived • .. that was one of the things we had to
work out, where they would spend the night there.
They spent the night there in some of the homes .
And that was not too pleasant for them , but they
did; and they also went t o church and, far as I
was concerned, they only had one church . I guess
that was true.
KTW : That ' s true still .
L. Palmer : When I got in with the preacher, they rd always tell
me that was the person to get in with . I ' d ask
them . I ' d say, "Now, who must I know and be
friendly wi th ?" They ' d tell m.e. And, of course,
Pierce was a big help . He wasn 't married then .
He was comparatively young.
KTW : They have an interesting pastor of that church down
there now . A f airly young man who grew up in
Gee ' s Bend . His name is Perkins and he has his
MA in psychology and another MA in Business Manage ­ment,
and he lives in Mobile, and he comes up
and serves. I t hink they just have preaching
every second Sunday. But he ' s very smart, and
an unusual man. He was brought up in Gee ' s Bend.
L. Palmer : Perkins is another common name down there, but
Pettway is the name . If you don ' t know what to
call them , just call them t hat .
KTW : Bendolph is another one down there. Pettway and
Bendolph .
L. Palmer : I don ' t remember Bendolph much. You know, Wilcox
County has some interesting blacks in it, and by
and large, they have had, out of that Gee ' s Bend
a r ea, had many opportunities to be educated .
Well . I just wonder what ' s going to happen to
tha t area .
KTW :
23
There ' s some new construction down there. These
people coming back from Bridgeport are building
some nice homes down there. Two fairly new
ones •••
L. Palmer : Well , have they divided the property up ?
KTW : They ' ve sold •.. there ' s a great deal of turmoil
down there because some of the younger blacks have
sold their property to the whites . Like Herbert
Hall Wilkinson and other people , and there ' s great
resentment among the people who have close ties
and love Gee ' s Bend . They don ' t think they ought
to ever sell any of that land .
L. Palmer : Well , you know the gossip down across the river
over there is that some of the people from Gee ' s
Bend were instrumental in getting the school
burned at Pine Hill . Whether that ' s true or
whether it isn ' t , I don ' t know . I have white
friends at Pine Hill who say that ' s one possibility .
They were terribly distressed that the Pine Hill
schools were burned, because they were good build­ings
; but ..• and the Gee ' s Bend high school child­ren
were bussed over ther e . ~vell , whether you
should or whether you shouldn ' t is again something
I don ' t know . I don ' t see how . •.. we felt the con­solidated
schools was the best way to do for high
schools for years and years and years , and they
don ' t have enough high school children in that end
of the county to justify building a high school .
And the r e are some excellent roads now .
KTW : Not too good to Alberta .
L. Palmer : Are they worn out?
KTltl : Yes , they ' re worn out, and it ' s right hazardous
driving . I do it right often, and it ' s one of
the worst roads that I drive on , because of the
log tru cks. It ' s just real hazardous . And it ' s
over a hundred miles round trip a day for the
chil dren . I don ' t know what the an swer is. Of
course, the practical thing is to build a bridge
or have a ferry going across to Camden and send
those children to the Camden school . which is six
miles .
L. Palmer : I didn ' t realize it was that close .
KTW : Over across the river? Yeah. you can see it . But
they have been very resentful of losing their
school . And I thought thei r last suit probably
had a better chance of winning , but Orzelle
Billingsley has handled it very poorly . They were
charging child abuse. with having to bus those
children so far.
L. Palmer : Of course, one of the things that happened in
Wilcox County, and that was putting Mr. Kelley
down there, with all due respect. That man , I
told them when they got him , they ought not to
put him. I had known Kelley from Conecuh County,
24
L. Palmer : and the kind of school he ran in Conecuh County
was not the kind that you Hcould run in Wilcox
County. There were too many blacks there . And
I was just upset with the Board of Education
KTW :
in Wilcox County because they selected that man .
I 'll tell you the truth, they had an awful hard
time getting anybody.
That ' s true . They didn ' t have much choice.
wouldn ' t have wanted the job, would you?
I
L. Palmer : No , I wouldn ' t want it. And I know one or two
KTW :
men who were offered it, and they said they felt
terribly bad about not taking it, because they
liked Wilcox County and they liked the blacks
as well as the whites , but they just couldn ' t
take it. t hey couldn ' t take their families down
there.
But Kelley was the worst choice they could possibly
get . I was working down there before Kelley went
and I was so thankful •••• I told them he wouldn't
have me any more , and I was so thankful my pre ­diction
was right, because I didn ' t want •• •
I just couldn ' t stand it. I had worked so close
with both the blacks and the whites that I felt
personally connected with them.
Had such good relations ?
L. Palmer : I had such good relationships with both the black
schools and the white schools , and I knew integra­tion
could take place if you could get it right.
(End Side 2. Tape 1)

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

This material may be protected under Title 17 of the U. S. Copyright Law which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research.

Holding.Institution

Birmingham Public Library (Alabama)

Full Text

1
Interview with Miss Lula Palmer
Date of Interview : May 19, 1980 ; Montgomery, Ala bama
Interviewer : Kathryn Tucker Windham
Transcriber : Edna O. Meek
Begin Side 1 , Tape 1
"Recollections of Gee ' s Bend "
L. Palmer : When we went down there , the blacks didn ' t have
anything . They were just grubbing out a living
with their hands, and the Farm Security went
down and asked for the WPA to give them some
help .
KTW : And you were working here in Montgomery at that
time , with the WPA ?
L. Palmer : I was in charge of the WPA nursery schools .
KTW : And this was about ' 37?
L . Palmer : Yes . somewhere between ' 35 and ' 37 . Of course , I
think this is important, because when one govern­ment
agency asks for another government agency to
help them out ... See . very little of that is ever
told in any sort of per sonal history or romantic
history . or anything else . They always make the
government things fight each other .
WelL anyway. the Farm Security asked for help from
the WPA to establish a WPA nursery school down
there . to take care of the children between the
ages of two and four or five . about that age .
So I was sent down there to do it. and, of course,
Gee ' s Bend is in the curve of the river, and the
philosophy of that area was that no white person
should be there after dark , and I was told that
by any number of blacks . The black teachers
were always worried when the sun would start
going down and I hadn ' t gotten across the river .
They even went across the river many times with
me , to be sure that I got on the other side .
KTW : Now , were they operating a ferry at that time?
L . Palmer : Oh, yes .
KTW : To Camden .
L. Palmer : Is there a bridge now?
KTW : There ' s nothing now . There ' s not even a ferry .
They have to go all the way around, forty miles .
L. Palmer : Well . I went all the way around . I didn ' t go at
Camden across the river . I went across the river
up farther . I went over almost to Catherine and
then through the bushes , through a little ..... .
You see , no roads were paved so it didn ' t make
any difference ... to a landing over there . I 've
forgotten what it was called .
2
KT\'l : Probably Hllley ' s Ferry or Miller ' s Ferry.
L. Palmer : Miller ' s Ferry . probably, because it was over
nearer the Miller property . Well . anyway, when
I got over there , Robert Pierce .. does that mean
anything to you ?
KTW : No .
L. Palmer : He ' s a black who was raised on Martha Simpson ' s
plantation . And I had known him when he was a
small boy . He finished Snow Hill Institute, and
if you want a story on that , I can give you that .
You see , it was largely financed by a few people ,
the President of Sears - Roebuck Company and my
great uncle , Mr . Simpson , and the land was given
by those two sources . The president of Sears- Roebuck
was very much interested in the education of negroes ,
and at that time it was really a part , or at least
it was supervised by Tuskegee Insti tute . WelL any­way,
Pierce finished there , Robert Pierce , and his
life history is most interesting .
KTW : Is he still living?
L. Palmer : Oh, yes . I saw him not too long ago .
KTW : He lives in Montgomery?
L. Palmer : No , he lives in Lowndes County . And I could tell
you about him in Lowndes County . He was a very
close friend of Hulda Coleman ' s there, and he had
a great deal of trouble during the integration
period, because he took up for Hulda and he was
tarred and feathered and all those things that
are horrible that could happen to them .
And I could tell you one funny story about him.
Anyway, he was having so much trouble with the
federal government and, you see , I was working
with the State Depar tment of Education , and I
worked ... this was just during the integration
period .•. and I worked with negro schools , and I
worked with white schools. So whenever I went
to a school , black or white . it was my policy
to speak to the principal of the school be f ore
I went into any classroom . And it didn ' t make
any difference to me whether it was black or
white . And so , I went down there . I knew Mr .
Pierce had been having problems with the federal
government. because he did take up for Hulda.
and Hulda was trying to do the best she could to
hold the schools . Well , anyway, when I went down,
Hulda sent one of her supervisors down there witm
me , a young woman from , I think. Oklahoma . A
very attractive young woman. and she said to me ,
"You don ' t have to wait to see Pierce . " I said ,
"Oh, yes , I do . It ' s for me , not for Hulda or
for the State Depar tment . It ' s my policy, and
I never go into any school without speaking to
the principal first . !I And she said, !lWell , you may
have to wait here a little while ." I said , "Well,
3
L. Palmer : are you in a hurry? l1 She said, ItOh , no. I I m
with you today. Ii
80 we sat down and the secretary came over and
said , "We ' re awfully sorry but there are some
people here from Washington and I can ' t disturb
Mr . Pierce. " And I said . " \'/e11 , don I t disturb
him. I ' ll be here when he gets out . I' Well . in
about fifteen or twenty minutes he came out with
two blacks and a white from Washington . and as
he came through the door he threw up his hands ,
and he said , l1 Bless God , Bless God , just like
seeing my relatives ! Bless God , Bless God. just
like seeing my relatives ! II Well , you have never .
He had a little higb, squeaky voice . Well , I
with you could have seen those peoples ' faces.
They didn ' t know what in the world to make of
it . And he brought me over and he said , "This
is Miss Palmer. She ' s in charge of all of the
education in the State of Alabama." Well , I
swelled up , you know , I was going to be put on
all that I could do . And I spoke to them , shook
hands with both of them , and I said , 111 I m sure
you find this school in very good condition , and
Mr. Pierce is one of my fine principals. " I
thought I ' d put my thing in because he did run a
good school . I wasn ' t lying about it . He had
a good school. He was a good man .
So , when they spoke to me , they went out, and
they 100ked ..• I have never seen people that
looked so shocked in all my life. So after they
had gone out, he said. "I wouldn ' t have taken
a million dollars for that . II I said . "Well .
Pierce, I ' ve come down here to see your kinder­garten
. your nursery school and what you ' re
doing in first grade . II He said, "Well , that ' s
just fine . You know you didn ' t have to wait to
see me ." I said. II No . but you know I always do . 1I
He said, II Yes , ma ' am . 1I So he went with us .
and that was the end of t hat . But I thought that
was the best part .
KTW : Yes . "Like seeing my relatives. " I know they
were shocked. Is he in Lowndesboro now?
L. Palmer : He lives out from Hayneville . No , not Hayneville .
KTW :
On down there at White Hall . Out in that area .
He has a nice home. He married a home economics
teacher and they live very well . In the mean ­time,
he got his Masters and Doctor ' s degree
from A & M. He ' s really something .
Well , let me go back and make some ties with
Gee ' s Bend.
L. Palmer : Now, we ' ll go back to Gee ' s Bend . When I went
down there, Pierce was in the school. They were
going to open up a public school . You see , they
didn ' t have a public school down there, and the
building was just about completed, so after I
4
L . Palmer : looked over and inspected the building he was
going to have for the nursery school , I went over
to the public school to see Pierce , and , in the
meantime , I had visited a few of the homes with
the teachers , to see what we had in store fo r us ,
and I would ask these mothers how old their
children were . And they said they were born tlbeween
cotton picking time and I tater digging time . /I Well .
I knew when you picked the cotton and I knew when
you dug t he potatoes , but I didn ' t know. what year.
YOll see , t hat didn ' t help me much .
So I went over to Pierce and I said to . hi!ll , 1I 1 1m
having a little trouble finding out how old these
children are. 1I He laughed and he said. "What do
they tell you? ' Tater digging and cotton picking ?1I
I said , nYes . II He said , II Don ' t you know when they
do that?1I I said, " Yes , but I don ' t know which
year, whether they did it this year or last year
or year before. 11 He said , II Don ' t worry, Miss
Palmer, I ' ll send you a wagon load of children ,
and if they ain ' t right, you just send them back
to me . 1I And I said , "Well, that's just fine. 1I
So I went on home that night and slept well and went
back down there early the next morning . He was
going to send them to me the next mo r ning. We
had gotten the school pretty much fixed up. So
about 8 : 30 , here came this great big truck load
of children , just packed in as tight as you could
get them on it, and he backed it up to the f ence,
and the t eacher s and I stood on the other side
of the fence , and he ' d drop them over to us, one
by one.
KTW : Were they frightened , or were they •••• ?
L . Palmer : Oh , no . Wiggling and giggling . They were having
a lot of fun, and we looked them allover , and we
examined them and we looked at their hands and
heads and everything , and finally I said to the
teachers , "Well , these look pretty good to me .
How do they look to yoU ?1I So the teachers said,
"Well , they look all right to us, if they look
all right to you. "
So , we took them in and got them started in the
school. So that afternoon before I left. I
thought I ' d go over and thank Pierce for sending '. ',
them over and tell him I liked them. So I
went by and I said , "You did a good j ob and I
apprecia t e your doing it. I cause I didn ' t know
how in the world I was going around and get these
children . What in the world did you do . 1I He
said . IIWell . as the children came in, I had them
open their mouth, and if they had cut their six
year molar, I kept them , and if they hadn ' t cut
them , I sent them to you. "
Now , find anybody else that would use something
that we had known since the year one about growth.
5
L. Palmer : You see , the child who is immature does not cut
his six year molar as fast as the child who is
mature . So he might have gotten some five - year­aIds
that are quite super ior . If we ld use
that now , we could get along a lot better . But
now, isn ' t that astounding ? I said . "Well . Pierce.
what are you going to do?" He said , II I want you
to see my school , and if you get any suggestions,
you help me . II
We went around and he had different numbers , one ,
two , three , four . eight. seven. allan these
doors . He said, uYou kno w, not anybody down
here can read and write . so I let the children
pick the number they want to go to . except I
put all the little ones in one and two. After
that, they can pick any grade they want to go to ."
Now, isn ' t that good?
So Pierce and I worked very closely together . He
always checked on me whenever I was down there .
and I checked on him just to see if there was
anything I could do .
Well , there were a lot of things that happened .
In the first place . the children had never seen
a flush toilet . We had put in waterworks for
the flush toilet. So . we had a great deal of
plumbing trouble the first money down there ,
because they eternally had to pee . 111 got to pee.
I got to pee . II But they knew they couldn ' t
flush the toilet unless they peed , so I was
afraid it was going to give them all kidney trouble .
I didn ' t know what to do , but I still stuck to my
guns that they had to do something in the toilet
before they could flush it, because we were just
literally wearing the thing out . So this man
from \Olashington came down and wanted to get •••••
this was several months after the opening •• wanted
to get a tape of what the children did , and the
nursery school .
Oh. by the way, before that, I went down one day
and they didn ' t have any children . I said, nWhat
in the world has happened2 11 They said. "Well,
they got the rumor spread that Roosevelt was
fattening up all these children and he was going
to send a car down here, a train down here to
get the children and we must have them all fat .
and when we get fat, we get slick . 11 That ' s
when I first noticed how you do get slick when
you get fat. I said, liMy goodness alive. what in
the wo rld would Roosevelt do with all these
children ?" And this teacher just really died
laughing. We were all good friends , you. know .
So I thought. "Wha t in the world can I do ?"
So I went to see the preacher. and the preacher
and I sat down and I said. "Now you know that
somebody started a rumor just to hurt us down
here. and you know that can ' t be true . What in
6
L. Palmer : the wo rld would Roosevelt do with forty or
KTW :
fifty children . between the ages of two and five?"
And he says . " Na I rn , I don ' t think he wanted them ."
I said, "Will you preach a ser mon Sunday and get
those children ba ck in school ? They are starving
they are not getting the right food , they are
not being taken care of . We give them a bath
every day and they get good food and they ' re
happy." He said. Yes lm."
So the next Sunday the teachers told me he
preached a good se r mon about Roosevelt . He said
he loved those little children but he wanted them
to be nice and fat in their own homes . So, the
next day the nursery school was filled .
I wonder if that was one of the Pettways ? The
preacher?
L. Palmer : Oh. nearly everybody down there was a Pettway .
You didn ' t have to learn but one name . All of
them were Pettways . So then , we came back and
these people came from Washington . I ' m not sure
the sequence of this thing is right. And they
called me in Montgomery and said they ' d like a
tape re cording , l i ke to reco r d the children. I
said . "Well , we ' ll be delighted, but have you ever
taped children? " He saidm ," No ' m." I said, "Well .
would you like for me to go with you , because you
may have problems taping the children . The
teachers are busy_ They haven ' t got time to
monkey with a tape recorder . We ' ve got forty
acti ve little children down there, all between
the ages of between eighteen or nineteen months
up to five years ." He said, "Well , if you could ."
So I went down with him and told him to set up
his tape equipment . In that day and time , it
wasn ' t simple .
KTW : Reel to reel .
L. Palmer : All this stuff you had to go through . Because I
said it was rather fascinating and they ' d probably
want to know something about it. I said, "Here
we do whatever we want to about whateve r is
brought in . If we want to touch it, we touch it .
We may have to wash our hands before we touch
it , but we are allowed to touch it . II He said,
"Well , that ' s fine , I ' ll get set up. /I I said,
HWtll , you know you have to prompt children to
keep them going at this age. I ' ll have ~he
teachers pick out one of the vocal ones , but in
the first place t hey ' re not accustomed to whites ,
and they ' re certainly not accustomed to white men,
and particularly people dressed up like you are .
People would frighten you if you had to talk in
front of somebody who was all tricked out in some
sort of costume. "
I think this boy got more frightened and more
frightened the longer I talked, but I wanted to
ha ve him ready for it . I said, 11 1 '11 stand here
7
L. Palmer : and if you look up at me and want me to inter­fere
, I will. II So , we got a Ii ttle boy . It
was right interesting that this little boy was
more vocal than some of the little girls , but ,
anyway. he came down and I said . "You ' ll just
have to ask him one question . then another ques ­tion
, and wait for him. You have to wait for
little boys to talk , because they don ' t burst out
like little girls . '1 I was giving him a good
lesson in child education .
So t he little boy came up and he said, !IGood
morning. tt The Ii ttle boy said . "Marnin 1.11
And he said , "What do you do when you go to
school ?'1 He looked , he looked. and I said , "What
do you do first? 11 He said , 1'1 opens my mouth. II
He said , tlWell , why do you open your mouth ?-"
"So teacher can look in ." "What do you do next?"
He said , "Then we pees. It And the boy looked at
me and said , "And what do you do next? " He said ,
"Then we washes our hands. II "And then what do you
do next?" "Then we go in the room ." II And what do
you do next? " "We listens to stories , but we sits
on the floor first . II "And then what do you do? "
"Then we gets up . II "Then what do you do? " "Then
we runs a r ound . 11 II And then what do you do? " "We
pees . " "And then what do you do? 1I !'We washes our
hands . II II And then wha t do you do? 11 "Then we
paints . II "What do you do after you paint ?" "We
pees ." And he said ..•. by this time this boy
was getting just about convulsed . •. He ' d smile ,
look up at me , look down, and he said, "What do
you do ne xt ?" "Then we gets our mats and we
takes a nap ." "Then what do you do? " "Then we
gets up and we pees. II "And then what do you do? "
"We washes our hands and goes to dinner." "And
what do you do next? " "We pees , and then we puts
on our pajamas , and then we takes a nap. " "Then
what do you do?" "Then we pees. " "Then what do
you do? " "We plays outdoors ." "Then what do you
do?" "Our mamas come for us. " "Then what do you
do? " "We pees ' fore we go home ."
About that time he said , "Well , that ' s about
eight or nine pees . My God , what do they pee
all the time for?" I said, "If you ' d never had
a flush toilet , wouldn ' t you pee every chance you
got?" He said , IIMiss Palmer. I never thought
about that in my life . " I said~ 1! They don ' t
have to pee all that time , but they have to pee when
they use the flush toilet. " Well, that 1 s on tape
in WaShington somewhere .
KTW : Was that flush toilet worked off the windmill ?
L. Palmer : I think so , yes . We had a tank, some sort of
tank . I don ' t remember where the tank was , but
it was worked off a windmill.
KTW : Because there was no electricity down there.
8
L. Palmer : No . I ' m telling you ••. well , t ha t was one of them.
The other story . The next time I went down there,
they called me and asked me i£ I could come . They
we r e having a lot of trouble with the childr en
getting to s chool . That the parents we r e keeping
them out . We either had too many or too few. So
I went down and t he teache r s were terribly upset.
By the way, I met one of these teachers down on
Dexter the o t her day. and she g r abbed me and about
s cared me so bad I didn ' t know wha t to do . I
didn ' t see her . She was behind me. S.he said , 1I 0h ,
Miss Palmer , I wouldn ' t take anything fo r seeing
you . n
So anyway, I said, !'What ' s the t r ouble ? !! She
said , "Well . the preacher has said we ' re · teaching
r ecreation over here and re creation is bad. "
I said , "Oh, well . I guess I be t ter go to see
him . n She said . "Dh, I wish you would . II So I
wen t t o see the preacher and we sat out on his
po rch and I said. "I understand that you ' ve been
pr eaching that we are teaching recreation .• "
"Yes lm. you sho ' is . That's a nice pla ce and I
sho ' ha t es to p r ea ch agains t i t . but you know
recreation is a sin . " I said, "Well . re creation
is a big word and it means a lot of things to
a lo t of people . Let ' s talk about r ecreation a
Ii ttle bit . Now. ther e I s certain t ypes of recrea­t
ion . I agree with yo u . I t l s this matter of
·playing cards for money and things like that.
I 'm agains t it . But not all recreation is that
type . "
He said. "No lm. it sho ' ain ' t . Maybe we better
talk about recreation. II I said, "What do you
think is bad about recreation ?" He said, II Well ,
this here ball playing . it ' s bad. " I said . nWell.
n ow , not all ball playing . You don l t think all
ball playing is bad, do you ?" He said, "Yes , ma 'am .
I just think ball playin ' is bad . " I said . "Well,
if you bet on games and you don l t play f air and
you say somebody is ou t when they ' re not out,
that ' s bad . That ' s sinfu.l. I know the Lord
wouldn ' t like that . Don I t you agree that ' s wrong? II
He said. II Ye-S . 1I I said, "Well . what a r e we doing
in the nursery schools that is so bad ?" He said.
"You I re teaching them chilluns how to play ball ."
I said, "No w, wait just a minute . When a chi ld
has a ball and throws and runs ~ f ter it, do you
call that tea ching tlall ?" "No lm. not exactly. "
He sai d. "What do you call it ?" I said, 'I I call
it exercise. " He said , "Yes . " I said , "You kn0w
you got to exercise . You can ' t plow the fi eld
unless you exer cise. You folks can ' t g0 to
church unless you exercise enough to walk t here . "
"That shd is so. They catches that ball , though ."
I said ; " I f you know a thr ee year old and a two
year old threw a ball and they caught i t like
this . would you call that tea ching them to catch
a ball ?" He said, "Na I rn , wha t you call it ? !!
9
L. Palmer : I said. 111 call that an accident. II He said,
l1 Lord. bless God, all you doin I is tea chin I
exercise and accidents . Al l t.h em 'chi l l un be ba ck
there next Mandat . "
KTW : Isn ' t that a strange thing ? Now , they ' re still
against all recreation down there. It was the only
nutrition site in the whole ten counties that would
not let us bring in checkers or dominoes.
L. Palmer : Oh. no , they didn ' t want to even catch the ball .
KTW : Oh, no. And they ' d tell me how they ' d get whipped.
when they were children for playing jacks with
rocks . Anything as innocent as that ... I just doni t
understand it.
L. Palmer : You know , I ' m sure you ' ve got the tales about they
always left one child in the home to take care
of the old folks.,
KTW : I have heard that , but did you ••• -.?
L. Palmer : Oh, they have told me that.. You see , I was down
there for eight hours or nine hours a day without
another white on the whole thing. And , naturally,
when you are ther~, and I visited the homes, I
did what the teachers couldn ' t do ,. Now, the
teachers had a little more trouble getting into
the situation than I did. I don ' t know, I guess
they just accepted me, but the teachers were black,
but they were from Camden. or other places . .
They didn ' t trust outsiders. Mr. Cammack was the
director of the Farm Security., He tried to get me
to always say I wouldn ' t go down there unless he
was there . Well. I wasn ' t going to do that. LQrd,
if I wasn I t enough to go down there and take care
of things •. .•
Well, he helped to build the houses. and put the ..
the first thing they did down there was the houses.
You see . their houses were practically falling
, in . He had them put steps on them. I thought
that was kind of interesting. They didn ' t have
any steps.
KTW: How did you get up ?
L. Palmer : Oh, somebody pulled you up , or-•.•.
KTW : When you first went down there, the government
had not done anything in the way of improving the
life conditions ?
L. Palmer : Oh, no. They had started this publie school and
they had included Mr. Cammack. Now, that was not
Mr. Cammack who lived here. He was at Auburn .
This was his brother who lived down at Grove Hill,
down in that part of the state. And they had
gotten a house and gotten it repaired for a
nursery school , and I think the Farm Security was
10
L. Palmer : probably thinking about operating their own · when
they found out they couldn't . We had ours going
and could get it going . We had just the very
best teachers , because . you see , during that time
so many of the schools in the rural counties
only ran three months , and the teachers were in
bad shape. and a great many of them were on WPA .
And the WPA was very',- very lenien t wi th the
nursery school program and let us select the very
best . And then we gave them six weeks of training
before they ever went in there .
KTW : Here in Montgomery?
L .• Palmer : No . we gave the white teachers Montevallo . Of
course . Montevallo had a very fine nursery school
at that time., and still does.. And we took the
negro teachers some here and some to Tuskegee .
And. of course. we selected our own teachers for
that type of thing. Then we took them back every
four months for a weeks work , and those teachers .
well , you can ' t say they weren ' t trained . They
were pretty well trained to do the type of thing
they had to do with the children that we had at
that time .
KTW : Now , was this nursery school close to where the
present school building is ?
L . Palmer : \VeIl , it was within walking distance . I walked
KTW :
a lot farther then than I do now , but it was . you
came to it first from this road that I came in on.
In .relation to the store , you know the big
commissary. it was not built at that time , though.
L ~ Palmer : Well . they did build a store . Of course . I used
to go back for all my vegetables and eggs . You
could buy eggs for five cents a dozen and you
could get a mess of turnip greens for a nickel .
They had never sold anything" Money was just
not used.. They ' d swap stuff . And the houses .
Well , I ' ve seen worse filth . because I think
KT\; :
the worst filth and poverty in the state was in
Huntsville at that time. But , places were
pitiful . But I was accustomed to pitiful places ,
so it didn ' t probably affect me as much as . ...
Were they mainly two room , dogtrot houses . or
what were they like?
L .. Palmer : They were two rooms .. Part of it would be torn
down . Sometime they had a little lean- to on the
back.. They had no toilets and they just went
out in the bushes, and they had leaks . In the
rain , many times you had to put your umbrella
up in the house . I usually wore a rain cap because
I was ashamed to put an umbrella up in somebody ' s
house.. I guess that was my sensi ti vi ty to people.
KTW : Also bad luck .
11
L. Palmer: Well. it is bad luck, but they had enough bad
luck to last them for the rest of time. And they
had a bsolu tely nothing. to work with. No t a ho e .
I didn't see a hoe or shovel. Sometime you'd
see an old hoe handle around that they ' d nail
something on it , just a little piece of metal .
KTW : Tin can. or something .
L. Palmer : Yes , something like that~ Talk about grubbing
out food . They grubbed out their food . There
wasn ' t any doubt about itM And . of course, if
you went around to see them, you had to drive .
because some of them lived a mile or two apart .
They lived allover that a~ea. And, of course ,
they sent these trucks out to pick up the children
to bring them in, and when . ! say that it sounds
cruel , but it wasn ' t .. The people who took care
of the children on those trucks did a beautiful
job ..
KTW : But were they just like empty truck beds?
L . Palmer : Yes . They put mats down for them to sit on .
KTW : Were they covered over?
L. Palmer : Well , they had a cover over them, but it wasn ' t
a cover like they have now . They just put a piece
of tarpaulin over them , or something of that type .
Get them in there in the rain . Sometimes they ' d
come in sopping wet.. You know, it depends on
what you are accustomed to .
KTW : It didn ' t make them sick, did it?
L .. Palmer : No , they were accustomed to being wet.. Not that
we would do that .
KTW :
You see, they fixed us a shower. They took my
dimensions and everything . I had the showers
buil t up so it wouldn ' t be so hard on the teachers"
backs , and the Ii ttle ones could climb up into
the shower., and then we could shower them off
standing UP4 They were built up about this
much off the floor , so , you see, the child would
stand about where your stomach is~ And then we
would teach them how to bathe . But these child­ren
would just have dirty dirt on them . I mean
clean dirt on them. You know . like yard dirt
and that kind of thing . and it wasn ' t so diffi ­cult
to clean them.
Now . what did you feed them ? Was ita diet
that they were accustomed to?
L. Palmer : t